Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words. ROCHE (CONT.) John P. Roche, writing in the October 21 issue of The New...
...If that were my view of the entire world, I would be an isolationist, but my view applies to Vietnam and a minority of the other nations of the world...
...Throughout the civil war men such as Manuel Ray, Raul Chibas and Huber Matos were fearful of a Castro government in which Che would be a major influence...
...Once we get out of the Republic of Vietnam, the nation will "go Communist," no matter what we do, save going back in...
...It is no more deserving of our support than the government of Uncle Ho...
...it is a shameful waste because Vietnam is of no importance to the United States...
...John P. Roche, writing in the October 21 issue of The New Leader ("Can a Free Society Fight a Limited War...
...I doubt that my reasons for criticizing the war—reasons which are certainly held by many others—are rooted in isolationism...
...For some, "instant mysticism" is not authentic enough: It is too easy an achievement, requiring no scourgings, self-discipline, or pain...
...Che's death was not a passion and tragedy, for he destroyed decent men in Cuba, not just those he met on the field of battle...
...Such statements as, "For the age of instant coffee, he had discovered a new convenience—instant mysticism" and "The revelations transcribed . . . make it perfectly clear that the Road to Nirvana is a very Dead End," are merely clever generalities that shift the onus of the books from the authors onto Huxley himself...
...states that he has "yet to find a critic who—when pushed back on his premises—did not end up embracing some variety of isolationism...
...The Republic of Vietnam is a corrupt, unstable, unrepresentative dictatorship...
...Briefly, he said that the countryside could always defeat the central government, that the overthrow of Batista was a victory for the peasants, that Batista's regime was typical of Latin American governments, and that the same type of revolution could be proliferated throughout the Continent...
...Cleveland, Ohio G. P. Platt...
...The reaction to Batista was not confined to the countryside but was general throughout Cuban society, and Castro's movement was financed and led by the urban middle class...
...Joseph Renfteld HUXLEY I am sorry to say that I must take exception to some parts of James R. Mellow's review of the Laura Huxley and John Atkins books on Aldous Huxley ("Writers and Writing," NL, November 18...
...And when Guevara took his ideas abroad he led men to their deaths in a hopeless cause...
...If the revolution was fought (as it was) for a return of liberal democracy to Cuba, then it was Castro, not these "worms," who betrayed it...
...Like "law and order" and "crime in the streets," "isolationism" carries along with it connotations that make its use ill-advised in all but the most extraordinary situations...
...Highland Park, N. J. Leonard E. Schulte CHE Mark FalcofFs review of Ricardo Rojo's biography of Che Guevara ("Why Guevara Failed," NL, November 18), while it does finally get around to saying that "Guevara's death, for all its mythic qualities," may have "disprovefd] his revolutionary theories," mainly goes along with the current iconology...
...The opposition to Guevara within the ranks of the July 26th movement knew that all these propositions were false...
...Elizabeth, NJ...
...If you must shed a tear, try thinking of the damned fools who followed him and died trying to make his idiotic theories work...
...Mellow, would you prefer yours to be freeze dried...
...The questions as to who the sender was, if indeed there was a message, and the veracity of its reception are not adequately dismissed by a glib "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven...
...The resistance to Batista came primarily from this class, which wanted the ordinary proprieties of bourgeois democracy observed in Cuba...
...What disturbs Mellows is that Huxley did in fact turn to hallucigens and found them satisfactory for his purposes...
...Either form of dictatorship is inherently hostile to the American way of life...
...One should bear in mind (as Mellow apparently did not) that it was Laura Huxley who wrote This Timeless Moment, and therefore Laura who received "a message from Aldous from the Great Beyond—a message conveying his discovery there of the importance of parapsychology...
...This was the Che that Cubans who served with him in the Sierra noticed and disliked from the moment they knew him...
...If this view—that the United States should not fight for one regime which is hostile to the United States and against a regime which is equally hostile to the United States—is isolationism, then I am proud to be called an isolationist by Professor Roche...
...It makes no difference whether the country is a Communist or an anti-Communist dictatorship...
...Guevara's theory justified the wholesale decimation of former Castroites when Fidel turned on people like Sori Marin and Matos and elevated Raul, Che and old-line Communists...
...This is one reason that Guevara developed his famous theory of what happened in Cuba...
...Fal-coff writes that: "Rojo has managed to convey Guevara's spontaneous generosity, his boundless optimism, his utter dedication to the building of a new society and a new type of human being . .." There are other aspects of El Che's character which might be discussed, such as his ruthlessness, his puritanism and his tendency to reach for a revolver when someone disagreed with him...
...I am sure there is some compromise somewhere...
...I oppose the war because it is a shameful waste...
Vol. 51 • December 1968 • No. 23
